Rothie Rovers 0-2 Newmachar Utd.
Machar made the short trip to Rothienorman without Jamie Gammie, Craig Robb, Ronan McMillan, Peter Melvin, James McMahon, Ross Gibson and long term absentee, Bruce Dryburgh. A disciplined and organised performance on a good pitch after all the rain meant we continue our winning streak against our near neighbours.
We allowed the home side to have the upper hand in terms of possession but limited them to very few clear cut chances apart from the opening minute when they missed a glorious chance to go ahead but after that the home side huffed and puffed without really troubling us too much.
Greg Wood broke through 1 on 1 with the keeper but a great saved denied the opening goal.
Shortly after, an awkward landing forced him off with a knee injury to be replaced by Tait Duthie on 24 minutes.
The first half ended 0-0 without too much to shout about.
The second half followed the vein of the first half where we restricted the home side to long range efforts and with 20 minutes to go we fortunately went ahead after a lofted freekick by Tait Duthie to the back post slipped through the hands of the keeper and into the net.
Boylan then found himself 1 on 1 with the keeper but he saved low to keep Rothie in the game. Cormack also found himself 1 on 1 with the keeper but both times, the ref blew for offside.
We weren’t to be denied though, and 10 minutes later we doubled our lead after our subs Jamie Boylan & Jack Cowie combined. Boylan made a good break down the right and cut it back into the path of Jack Cowie who drilled a lovely shot into the bottom left hand corner.
The home side threw everything at us in the final 10 minutes but we held strong and took a valuable 3 points home.
A very good, organised performance by the whole squad and although the home side had a lot of possession we showed our resilience and held firm. When the opportunities arose we took them in yet another tight competitive game between the teams.
FT 0-2
NUFC Team – Mitchell, E Dryburgh, Young, Munro, Reynolds, Gerrie, Davie, Watt, Whelan, Wood, Cormack.
Subs – Boylan, Cowie, Collins, Duthie
We caught up with the gaffer after the game to get his thoughts…
Yea, massive 3 points in a week where i’m shocked there was any games on to be honest. A full 90 minutes for the skipper for the first time since the collor bone at Cruden Bay. Delighted for him. Hopefully the injury to Greg isn’t a bad one and he’s back soon.
We knew if we defended well, kept our organisation, our tactical discipline, we’d always get a few chances. I thought first half we defended well but other than Greg’s chance we didn’t do enough going forward. Don’t think the shape worked so we changed it at half time and i thought second half we were excellent throughout the whole squad.Obviously the longer it goes, the more frustrated Rothie get, the more it opens up a wee bit for us. I feel for Lewis in the Rothie goal, but we’ll take it. I think we maybe should’ve had a penalty too but it was waved away. Cormack is 1 on 1 with the keeper twice but both were flagged offside and he’s saved well 1 on 1 from Boylan. Then Jacko does what we know he can do and seals the game for us with that strike.
Photos courtesy of Simon Robertson